December
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, SHK 7.0921. Friday, 6 December 1996. From: David Skeele <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 14:55:15 -0500 Subject: Re: PERICLES Anthology Dear SHAKSPEReans, I have recently been made volume editor of Garland Press' anthology of essays on PERICLES, and I am now seeking contributions. Essays may be literary criticism or articles on PERICLES in production. If you are submitting a piece of literary criticism, however, please know that because they will be appearing alongside "classic" pieces of criticism from the 17th Century to the present, these new critical essays should probably be based in current methodologies (for example, a purely formalist analysis of the play may still be worthwhile and interesting, but such an approach will already have been covered by, say, Northrop Frye and a number of "myth-critics"). Because performance analysis of Shakespeare's plays is ground less well-trod, and because the mere fact of reporting on new and different performances automatically creates variety, I will not insist on the same from those writing on performance. In all cases, I will be extending a preference to those essays which do not rely inordinately on jargon (I do believe it is possible to write good post-structuralist criticism without burying the reader in a fog bank of quasi-scientific terminology). In terms of performance-based essays, I am particularly interested in accounts and analyses of German PERICLES'. If you are interested in submitting a paper, please send a description or proposal to me by E-mail, and I will contact you. If the description/ proposal is appropriate for the anthology, and does not repeat material already accepted, I will ask for a hard copy. Please send these initial postings before February 15 (I will probably set May 1 as the deadline for the hard copy). Many thanks for your interest, and I look forward to hearing from you. David Skeele Slippery Rock University
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, SHK 7.0920. Friday, 6 December 1996. (1) From: Paul Hawkins <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 13:43:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 7.0915 Re: Politics (2) From: Sean K. Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 05 Dec 1996 12:08:37 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 7.0915 Re: Politics (3) From: Andrew Walker White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 15:50:18 -0500 (EST) Subj: Is the Bard Bourgeois? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Hawkins <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 13:43:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: 7.0915 Re: Politics Comment: Re: SHK 7.0915 Re: Politics Belinda Johnston is obviously wearied by the "tired essentialisms" of Andy Walker-Whyte and other non-Marxists. Many of us on-line are as tired of the tired relativisms of Marxists and cultural materialists unlimited, which her post then goes on to express. Do you see how easy it is to turn your non-thought against you? I think this impasse can be solved if instead of remaining tired we all wake up--and engage in honest discussion, where adjectives like "tired" are avoided because recognized for what they are--cheap tactics to avoid debate, reflecting the essential snobbery of those who use them. Paul Hawkins (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean K. Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 05 Dec 1996 12:08:37 -0800 Subject: 7.0915 Re: Politics Comment: Re: SHK 7.0915 Re: Politics Hi, Belinda. >I see I have been accused by Jane Thompson of flippancy and non-argument. >Indeed, Thompson implies that the non-arguments proferred by 'we Marxists' is >the reason for the lapses into the hate speech exemplified by Walker-White's "I >despise Marxists". Show me an argument for 'human spirit' and 'creativity' >that doesn't resort to tired essentialisms and I'll accept the charge of >'non-argument'. Your answer demonstrates the closeness between "arguments" [sic] for either the existence or the non-existence of the human soul. Neither can be defended by reference to an agreed standard. It's like a Catholic and a behaviouralist arguing about morals: they'll never even agree on what to argue *about*. If Walker-White's are non-arguments, then so are yours: both simply state dogma. >Few of the Marxists I know would say the human subject is >'spiritless'- rather they would suggest that our very notions of spirit, >creativity, and artistic value are variable, culturally-bound and produced out >of a series of material relations. Therefore, we must be careful how we deploy >those terms. Of course. Likewise, however, one can certainly conceive a philosophical position in which material relations are products of spirit. Perhaps you should be careful how you deploy terms derived from economics. The totalizing primacy of "material relations" is as much a dogma as the belief in a human soul. >It is precisely this language that I object to in Walker-White-s >argument and my flippantly insulting response was intended simply to point out >that the notion of a sovereign individual subject (employed in Walker-White's >latest posting in his reduction of capitalism and marxism to individual >'motive') is a notion in need of interrogation, and worthy of suspicion. So is the ontological naivety of your materialism. Cheers, Sean. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andrew Walker White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 15:50:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: Is the Bard Bourgeois? Ms. Johnston, convinced that my motives are still of the ulterior kind, continues to dismiss my observations about the performing arts. Yet, while she says Marxists believe in the human spirit, she insists on using terminology like "human subject" and, with regard to me, "sovereign individual subject". This may be impretinent, but might I remind her that we are, after all, talking about human beings? As useful as a discussion of contexts for our beliefs may be, when we automatically attribute elitism to artists, and when we automatically assume that all Shakespeare productions outside the city limits are patronizing, we are forgetting something; namely, that most, if not all such productions, are not patronizing at all. They are selected for production by people in the community who want to put on a good show, who want to entertain their neighbors. The last thing they need is theorists who, ignorant of their personal backgrounds and intentions, judge them harshly for even thinking of putting on Shakespeare -- who, ideological considerations aside, is still a pretty darned good draw. Perhaps Ms. Johnston could answer this for me; when a leftist thinker on this list stated -- as a categorical fact -- that performing artists are elitists, I took it to mean that he was saying he despised us. This list, so far as I know, is open to performing artists as well as academics. Since he knew he was addressing us directly, I took his comment as a direct insult, and responded in kind. While I regret my strong language, I am still wondering what, if any, is the qualitative difference between his remarks and mine? Andy White Urbana, IL
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, SHK 7.0919. Friday, 6 December 1996. (1) From: Frank Whigham <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 08:38:03 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 7.0916 Re: Trevor Nunn's *Twelfth Night* (2) From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 14:32:15 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 7.0916 Re: Trevor Nunn's *Twelfth Night* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Frank Whigham <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 08:38:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: 7.0916 Re: Trevor Nunn's *Twelfth Night* Comment: Re: SHK 7.0916 Re: Trevor Nunn's *Twelfth Night* On deemphasizing Antonio's sexuality: The production cut Antonio's final two lines in 2.1: "But come what may, I do adore thee so, / That danger shall seem sport, and I will go." These always seem to me the first unmistakable evidence of his erotic affection for Sebastian, and I certainly experienced this cut as an explicit muting or silencing, though other positive aspects of the production remain clear enough (the handling of his exit, for instance). Why, though, disguise him with a dog-collar and granny glasses in the arrest scene? This too seemed like a desexualizing to me. Indeed, it always seems to me that Antonio is incapable of disguise, sexually polymorphous (or heterodox, anyway) but (otherwise?) seen instantly for who he is, whereas others' desires are generally veneered in some way. Did anyone see any sign that Olivia's desire for Cesario had any homoerotic content, as is often thought? Frank Whigham (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 5 Dec 1996 14:32:15 -0500 Subject: 7.0916 Re: Trevor Nunn's *Twelfth Night* Comment: Re: SHK 7.0916 Re: Trevor Nunn's *Twelfth Night* I've not yet seen the film, but look forward to it--TN is one of my favorite scripts. The comments about the Toby et al. being "too rough" on poor Malvolio takes me back to the decisions we made in our production many years ago. I had sat through three gloomy, autumnal productions (one in Stratford) and was determined to reclaim the comedy of the piece. One of the decisions we made was that Malvolio deserved what he got. He was everything others here have said he is, and beyond that he was *simply unsuitable* for Olivia. I think I have mentioned before how the young actor playing him carried an executive clipboard with him and wrote down all of Olivia's many commands, and then he'd read them back when he needed them. The ring scene was a prime example of his prissy obsessiveness; he kept referring to his notes and quoting Olivia's "exact words." We said at the time that Malvolio was the perfect assistant principal. Olivia herself defines Malvolio for us when she says he's just too un-fun for his own good. She tells him in their first scene to lighten up, but he doesn't. In fact, he never does, and that's why he's deserving of punishment. At the end, in our production, when he was reduced to helpless fury by the whirligig of time, he spat out his threat of revenge and was greeted by a gale of laughter from the cast--and from the audience. The alternative, granting Malvolio "personal dignity," means allowing his "kind of Puritanism" to gain a toehold in our existence. We preferred to tell him to "sneck up." Yes, Toby and Maria knew they had gone too far, but it wasn't out of pity for Malvolio--it was out of concern for their standing with Olivia. Quash him and his kind, and quash them thoroughly. I know it is incredibly unfashionable to minimize the melancholy of this play, but you can take it from me that it can't be eradicated, even in our sunniest of productions. On the other hand, overemphasizing the pathos/bathos of Malvolio, Andrew, Toby, and Antonio, seriously tampers with the very very funny nature of the play. It's perverse, almost as bad as making Pyramus and Thisbe a serious attempt at poor-man's theatre. Anyway, that's our take on the comedies here in Newnan--make 'em laugh. If you want to bother them, do Timon or Titus. Dale Lyles Newnan Community Theatre Company http://shenandoah.peachnet.edu/~dlyles/nctc/nctc.html
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, SHK 7.0918. Thursday, 5 December 1996. From: Bernice W. Kliman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 4 Dec 1996 22:38:19 -0500 Subject: Hales/Petit Case A friend who is not on e-mail knows he saw among the many journals he receives a long essay about the Hales/Petit case and its relation to the gravediggers' discussion of Ophelia's suicide. Now he cannot locate it. If anyone saw that essay and knows where to locate it, would they write to me privately? Many thanks, Bernice
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, SHK 7.0917. Thursday, 5 December 1996. From: John Velz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 4 Dec 1996 21:36:58 +0200 Subject: Antonia Fraser or Mel Gussow There is a startling sentence in Mel Gussow's account of an interview with Lady Antonia Fraser about her recently published *Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot*. The sentence appears in a parag. on p. B2, cont. from B1 of "The Living Arts" section of the *NYT* for Wed. Dec. 4, '96. . . . . . "There are frequent references to Shakespeare, who was contemporaneous with James I. Lady Antonia said that in writing 'Macbeth.' with its theme of regicide, Shakespeare was influenced by the Gunpowder Plot. 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear' came later, and therefore were Jacobean rather than Elizabethan plays. Because Ben Jonson and others were writing at the time, she said, the period was artistically a 'kind of cusp.'" . . . . . The fact is that *Macbeth* came last of the three plays mentioned, not first, as most undergraduate students of Shakespeare know. And *Hamlet* is an Elizabethan play. The sentence as phrased makes it seem that *Macbeth* is both an Elizabethan play and antecedent to a Jacobean event, the Gunpowder Plot. If one assumes that "later" is an editing error for "earlier", one is even worse off, because that would make the Jacobean plays earlier than the Tudor plays, and besides *Lear* 1605 is clearly a Jacobean play however you play the sentence. So it wouldn't do to edit "later" to "earlier" and "Jacobean" to "Elizabethan." It is all a muddle, as they say in London. The question is whether this is Lady Antonia's garbling or Gussow's? He ought to know better, as he has been writing theater and culture columns for *The New York Times* for a long time. I find it hard to believe that Lady Antonia could be this confused about the chronology of the Shakspeare canon. The misinformation running around about Shakespeare in the popular press and in pop history is appalling. *The Times* and/or Lady Antonia should do better than this! In sorrow, John Velz